The Tenth Girl by Sara Faring

At the very southern tip of South America looms an isolated finishing school. Legend has it that the land will curse those who settle there. But for Mavi—a bold Buenos Aires native fleeing the military regime that took her mother—it offers an escape to a new life as a young teacher to Argentina’s elite girls. Mavi tries to embrace the strangeness of the imposing house—despite warnings not to roam at night, threats from an enigmatic young man, and rumors of mysterious Others. But one of Mavi’s ten students is missing, and when students and teachers alike begin to behave as if possessed, the forces haunting this unholy cliff will no longer be ignored. One of these spirits holds a secret that could unravel Mavi’s existence. In order to survive she must solve a cosmic mystery—and then fight for her life.

I’ve been delving into creepier books and books that can be classified as horror and thriller. I guess I enjoy freaking myself out haha. This book seemed like it would be a really great, really creepy ghost story. The secluded mansion, with dark secrets, made it a book I knew I wanted to try. Trigger warnings: pedophilia, self-harm, grief, gore, mentions of suicide

Wow, wow, I don’t even know where to start. This book is something else. Throughout the book, I didn’t love it. The writing style felt a little heavy to me, the plot was lagging, and I just didn’t understand why certain aspects where apart of the story. It seemed like a typical haunted house story with a lot of cliches thrown in. I got kind of bored at more than a few parts. There was enough to keep me reading. I really enjoyed the setting and a lot of the characters were interesting. This book has an amazing feel to it. It feels like a haunted house, secluded, and surrounded by ice.

I thought about DNFing a couple times, but I was hoping there would be a twist that would tie everything together and the aspects I did like were enough to keep my going. AND WOW WAS I REWARDED FOR PUSHING THROUGH. I didn’t see the twist coming. It’s the kind of idea your brain might come with in passing, but you’ll discard the idea because it’s ridiculous and would never work. But, wow. Faring is able to pull it off absolutely incredibly. It fits with the rest of the story, it doesn’t diminish what happened beforehand, and it makes everything more stark and horrifying.

I feel like people might DNF halfway through. But, I’m here to tell you that it is 100% worth it to finish the book. The ending completely changed what I thought about the book. I went from kinda meh, to absolutely adoring it.

And even looking at the cover after finishing it, I was able to see that the seeds are planted even there and it’s SO COOL. The designers (Jeff Miller, Natalie C. Sousa) did such an incredible job. I just stared at it in awe after I finished the book.

I also really loved that this book is set in Argentina! I’m so happy there are more books being published that don’t take place in the US.

Some of the aspects that I didn’t love, turned out to be really smart and really amazing after everything was revealed. I love when books do that, they take something I’m sort of meh about and turn it into something really important for the plot and something that works really well.

The characters were fantastic. They’re messy, they’re hurt, they’re real. They give so much depth to the book. They make the book so much better. They make it more terrifying, they make it more heartbreaking, and they make the book work. Even the most minor characters play such an important role.

Just, this book left me a little speechless. I don’t know how to describe how good the ending is or how everything wraps up in such an amazing way. The little details that turn out to be important and the how characters development wraps up in such a great way. This book was terrifying and so smart. I really, really liked it.

The Tenth Girl comes out September 24, 2019! You can add it on Goodreads and pre-order a copy in the meantime!